Sogala - A feast for the eyes...

Sogal hills was one of the most under- appreciated aspects of visiting most important cultural heritage site as well as one of the places of waterfalls, beautiful hill ranges, unusual scarlet rock formations are richly rewarded with incredible nature and it was a chance at seeing the real beauty of a wonderful place in life time…

 

When we reached the Sogala a gorgeous 80 feet high waterfall welcomed us with its big pond. The waterfalls view was very pleasant with its surrounding red mountains and huge red cliffs and back side greenish paddy fields all were so delightful was once we forgotten everything for a while.

 

After a heartfelt sight of the waterfalls we stepped for next spot. After few stepping up we reached to the hillside, were we seen many temples, including the Someshwara temple, and it was a great antiquarian interesting place, It is perhaps the most popular attraction of Someswara Temple’s Interior and outer door wall.

 

The temple is made from carved stone and is dedicated to Lord Shiva. This temple was constructed on Rashtrakuta’s period. The name of the place is ascribed to a sage, Sugola Muni, who is believed to have lived in the area, but one inscription speaks of Sovala. We spotted and the black faced monkeys and normal monkeys around the hill and temple premises.

 

Local folklore states that tigers came to Sogal to listen to the religious teachings. Other legends include a nearby Kalyanmantapa (temple), now renovated, where the marriage of Shiva and Parvati is said to have taken place all this reminiscent of the harsher times of the Saga Age.

 

Later we headed to deer park were maintained by forest department. Eastern side we find few more temples like Sri GuruMatananda Samadhi temple and a dilapidated condition cave temple and a stone Surya-Chandra shrine also here. On the hill to the east of Sogal is an old fortification, now in ruins, locally referred to as Kadambarayan Kote perhaps named after Kadamba King but we couldn’t able to trace this place.

 

We made enough adventures activities in this hill ranges in our own way it was very interesting aspects with great panoramic views, here forest also vaguely different with thick vegetation we had some beautiful countryside outlook from southern end of the hill range.

 Fascinating fiery red hiils

 

With the relative low population density, ecosystems and a vast variety of landscape features, we had adventurous enough to experience such delightful sightings of rare birds and animals and extra-ordinary countryside views, the Sogal hills, and the waterfalls in places that have yet to be crushed by mass developments somehow in few parts were effected by some insightful intuitive development activities but still enough to hold its attraction for nature as well as spiritual lovers. As the day wore down we headed back with enjoyable pleasing memories ….